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Sporting Life
Let’s celebrate the past. Let’s name arenas after our heroes
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A bare-footed P.C. Suppiah, pictured in the 1971 Singapore Amateur Athletic Association Open Championships' 10,000m race at Farrer Park Stadium, also competed shoe-less at the 1972 Olympics.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Like a leaf tossed aside by a careless wind, stories get lost in time. Sometimes only when you meet an old hero, his legend bent by time, or dig into the archives, do you hear them. Like the one from 51 years ago, when a Singaporean left his unique footprints on a Munich track.
At the 1972 Olympics, people in the athletes’ village took photographs of long-distance runner P.C. Suppiah’s shoe-less feet. An official kindly brought him to the inside lane so he wouldn’t get spiked. Sponsors gave him free footwear. He came home and gave them to his friends. The only equipment he relied on was his will.
